Amazingly realistic Facebook ads slamming the company from a 'provocative' street artist are blanketing NYC streets

• Several posters popped up Thursday across New York City that, at first glance, appear to be advertisements from Facebook.
• However, the ads are fake and actually criticize the company. The art is by Winston Tseng, a street artist known for his realistic, tongue-in-cheek "ads" that have in the past parodied Fox News, Apple, and the NYC Department of Sanitation.
• Tseng's Facebook ads draw on the role of Facebook Groups in political discourse, and seem to echo criticism of the platform's algorithms for encouraging divisiveness among users.

Advertisements that appear to promote Facebook Groups — emblazoned with iterations of the campaign's "More together" slogan — have been popping up across New York City this week. But a closer look of one ad reveals the phrase "We're more misinformed together." Another: "We're more outraged together."

The Facebook "ads" are actually street art by Winston Tseng, a well known "street provocateur," and they appear to be a statement on how the platform has been found to drive users to extreme views and encourage political divisiveness among users. The installations play off Facebook's recent ad campaign focused on Groups, in which people were encouraged to use the feature to find their niche community of cosplayers, Corgi lovers, and so on.

Accurate.

A post shared by Alan Mooiman (@alanmoo) on Aug 9, 2020 at 10:36am PDTAug 9, 2020 at 10:36am PDT

—Dan Teran (@dpteran) August 13, 2020

Facebook has been criticized for its inability to adequately handle and quickly take down misinformation, particularly as it pertains to politics. More recently, Facebook leadership was slammed for its decision not to deal with Donald Trump's social posts, including those that spread misleading allegations about voting and encouraged violence against Black Lives Matter protesters.

Tseng's ads seem to reference a report from May that showed Facebook's algorithms were instrumental in driving people apart, instead of bringing them together. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Facebook leaders were told about the platform's role in encouraging divisiveness — but decided to largely ignore and shelf the research.

A Facebook spokesperson said at the time that the team had "learned a lot since 2016," and was no longer part of "the same company."

"We've built a robust integrity team, strengthened our policies and practices to limit harmful content, and used research to understand our platform's impact on society so we continue to improve," Facebook said in a statement in May.

Facebook did not respond to Business Insider's most recent request for comment.

Tseng has in recent years posted up similar parody ads meant to be provocative. His art often slams some aspect of current political affairs in wildly realistic advertisements. In one of his most well-known iterations, posters were put up on New York trash bins instructing people to "Keep NYC trash free." The ads featured art of people wearing red "Make America Great Again" hats, overlayed with a crossed-out red circle.

Previously, Tseng has created fake ads seeming to come from tech companies, like Apple and Twitter; retailers such as Chanel and GAP; and organizations including the NYC Department of Sanitation and the National Rifle Organization.